Background

The Wet Tropics of North Queensland consists of a mixture of natural and agricultural landscapes. Balancing the need for protection of areas of high conservation value with profitable production systems to sustain people's livelihoods is a constant challenge for residents of the area.

Presently there are new opportunities for sustainability where production is possible but landscapes are protected. The sugar industry in transition, the need for greater protection of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as increasing development pressures open up these new opportunities for change.

This project builds links between production and conservation through partnerships with farmers and the community to understand their future goals and aspirations. These will be used to develop ideas for future landscapes. Production and conservation are both part of the social-ecological framework for sustainable landscape planning.

Study Areas

Two neighbouring landscapes form the study areas – a lowland and an upland landscape. The lowland landscape, around Mossman, characterised by tropical coastline, sugarcane paddocks and tropical fruit orchards. The upland landscape, around Julatten, characterised by a mixture of land uses including timber plantations, grazing pastures, abandoned paddocks, orchards and sugarcane paddocks.

Mossman - tropical coastal landscape dominated by sugarcane

Julatten - upland landscape characterised by a mixture of land uses

>> Objectives & Outcomes